


The First Few Friends I Had

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Series: 1960s [5]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Drug Use, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 05:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16056965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: Diana arrives in New York, ready to live a new life.





	The First Few Friends I Had

**Author's Note:**

> In the Oxford World Classics editions of Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels, there's an appendix dealing with the fact that Trollope didn't originally plan to write a series, so the timeline doesn't entirely make sense--it advises working on two simultaneous timelines. I have a similar problem to Trollope with this AU, in that I didn't originally plan it as a series and the Diana storyline is compressed into a shorter time than really makes sense. My apologies.
> 
> That said, this fic precedes the others in this series (with the exception of the beginning of "While She Was Somewhere Being Free," which runs on a parallel timeline). I would recommend reading at least "How to Expand Your Mind" and "I Can't Go Back There Anymore" first.
> 
> The title comes from "Bob Dylan's Dream" by Bob Dylan.
> 
> I don't own The X-Files or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

Goodbye, Diana thought, when the bus finally started to move, heading out of Boston.  Not that she had anyone to actually say goodbye to, in the here and now: her parents hadn’t come to see her off, and she wouldn’t have expected them to.  It was more of a metaphorical thing.  Goodbye, she thought, to her father and her mother, to the house in the Back Bay.  Goodbye to decorous parties, to legs crossed in stockings.  Goodbye to good taste, to avoiding vulgarity.  Goodbye to the idea that it’s very noble, very worthwhile, to live your life as a subtle influence behind the scenes.  Goodbye to meeting nice boys.  Goodbye to meeting any males who are still referred to as boys.

She felt it, the repeated rhythm, _goodbye goodbye goodbye_ , pulsing in her blood, as sure and steady as “Dancing in the Street” on the bus’s radio.  It kept up until they got to New York, until they pulled in there, and then it changed subtly.  Hello, it said.  _Hello hello hello._

She stayed in a hotel for the first few nights, until she found the right ad in the Village Voice, two women looking for a third roommate, right near Washington Square Park.  _Must not be a square_ , the ad said, and Diana marked it carefully, wanting to be anything but a square.  She was wearing jeans and a purple peasant blouse when she went to answer it.  She could wear them every day now, if she wanted to.

The woman who answered the door at the apartment was a little younger than her, Diana thought; she had long blonde hair, tied back with a scarf.  “Hi,” she said.

“Hello,” Diana said.  “I came about your ad.”

“Oh, right,” the woman said.  “Well, someone else already came, and she said she liked the room, but I didn’t really like her, so I said I’d let her see.  If we like you better you can have it.  Come on in.”  She turned to let Diana in.  “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Diana,” she said.  She didn’t give her last name.  She was used to it holding too much meaning, affecting how she was treated; she didn’t always mind, but that was behind her now.  She didn’t know if it would hold meaning for this woman, but you could never tell.

“I’m Starchild,” the other woman said.

“That’s cool,” Diana said.  She’d grown up with plenty of girls with nicknames, but never a Starchild.

“Thanks, I picked it myself,” Starchild said, as if there were some question about that.  “Because I’m a child of the stars.”  She headed further into the apartment, through a living room with an old couch.  “Here, I’ll show you the room.”

The room was small, wedged into a corner of the apartment, but it looked all right: not too dirty.  “It’s nice,” Diana said.

“I’m in the one next to the kitchen,” Starchild said, jerking her head in what Diana presumed was that direction.  “And Judith’s in the middle room.  She’s kind of a pain sometimes.”  Diana was beginning to wonder who Starchild did like.  “But she’s all right, really,” she concluded.  “Here, I can show you the kitchen too.  Do you cook?”

“Not really,” Diana said.  That was an understatement.  There had never been a reason for her to cook, at home.  She could make toast.  Sandwiches. 

“We take turns cooking a lot,” Starchild said.  “But maybe you could do something else.  More cleaning or something.”

“Maybe I could learn,” Diana said.  Maybe she could learn here, in this kitchen Starchild was showing her, with peeling yellow paint and mismatched mugs.

“Yeah, it’s not that hard,” Starchild said.  “I’m pretty good at cooking.  I used to have to make dinner all the time, when my parents were at work.  And I make great brownies.  I wouldn’t make those for my parents, though.”  She snorted, suddenly.  “Although maybe it would do them some good.  They could let loose for once.”  She turned to Diana.  “What about your parents?  Are they the type to get stoned?”

“Um…no,” Diana said.  “No, not in the slightest.”  She tried to picture it; it was a funny image.  Her mother scarfing down canapés.  Her father trading his clipped speech, all facts and figures, for something slow and dreamy.

“Yeah, they never are,” Starchild said with a sigh.  “That’s the whole problem with that generation.  How about you?  Are you the type?  You saw where I put no squares, right?  That’s because Judith tells me I smoke too much.  Some people can’t live and let live.”

“I’m not opposed to it,” Diana said.  She’d smoked her share of joints, holed up in dorm rooms, giggling with the other girls, trying to mask the scent.  She’d sacrificed more than one bottle of perfume to the cause.

“Good,” Starchild said.  “We could smoke now, if you want?  I mean, that’s pretty much the whole apartment.  I can show you the bathroom first.”

Diana looked at her.  “Is this how you decide if you want to be roommates with people?”

Starchild shrugged.  “Seems as good a way as any,” she said.  “Then I can see what you’re really like.  So far, I think you’re okay.  Maybe a little prissy.  But I could get a better idea, if we smoked.  If you want to.”

Diana had breezed over a lot of the speech, her mind fixed on one sentence.  “I’m not prissy,” she said. 

“I only said a little,” Starchild said.  “Anyway, if you’re not prissy, come look at the bathroom and then we can smoke.”

So Diana looked at the bathroom: blue fixtures and a door that didn’t quite latch (“We all know,” Starchild said, “so it doesn’t matter, if you respect it”).  And then she settled onto the living room couch, next to Starchild, who was rolling a joint briskly, talking all the while.  “So where are you from, anyway, Diana?” she asked.

“Boston,” Diana said. 

“You go to college?”  She finished rolling, lit the joint, took the first puff.

“Yeah,” Diana said.  “I finished last year.”

“As in graduated?” Starchild asked.  “Or dropped out?”

“Graduated,” Diana said.  Maybe that was what made her prissy.  Well, if it was, she didn’t care.  She thought it was idiotic, not to finish what you’d started.

“I was at Oberlin,” Starchild said, passing Diana the joint, “but I dropped out.  And now I’m here.  And my family’s all the way in Cleveland, thank fuck.” 

“You guys aren’t close?” Diana asked.  She took a drag, blew out the smoke.  “This is good stuff.  Thanks.”

“What’s mine is yours,” said Starchild.  “I’m all about sharing.  And yeah, you could say we’re not close.”  She laughed.  “No, they’re not so bad, for who they are.  But if you look in the dictionary under squares?  You will see a picture of my parents.  My dad’s a fucking accountant.”  Diana made a sympathetic noise, which seemed to be called for.  _My dad’s a fucking shipping magnate_ , she thought about saying.  But she didn’t, not then.  That wasn’t the woman she wanted to be now. 

She did say it later, though, when some time had gone by (she’d lost track of how much) and they were stretched out next to the couch, both of them buzzed.  It seemed selfish, then, to hoard her life story, when Starchild had told her all about growing up in Cleveland, her father the accountant and her mother his secretary, her little brother who she had to watch, her thoughts about free love (she was in favor) and what the government was doing in South Asia (she was against), and even her real name, Susanne, which she confided in a loud whisper with a face like she was sucking a lemon.  So Diana told her about growing up in Boston, about her own parents, about rounds of introductions to boys from Ivy League schools.  “I’m sorry I called you prissy, Dee,” Starchild said; she was leaning against her by then, and calling her Dee, and it all seemed natural, nice.  “Now I get why you’re like this.  That must be hell on earth.”

It wasn’t, always.  “Yeah,” she said.  “It was.”

“But you’re here now,” said Starchild.  “It’s so much better, when you’re by yourself.  You’ll see.”  And she would, she knew. 

They lay there, on the floor, talking idly, until a tall girl came into the apartment.  Judith, Diana presumed.  She stared down at them with a peeved expression.  “Honestly,” she said, at last, walking into her bedroom and slamming the door, and Starchild started to laugh and Diana did too, hard and long.

“The room’s yours if you want it, Dee,” Starchild finally said, wiping her eyes. 

“Thanks,” Diana said.  “I do.”

She moved her stuff in the next day.  She stowed her matching suitcases in the closet, way at the back, where she couldn’t see them anymore.

 

The protest wasn’t going according to plan.  It had started out well; Diana and Starchild had come together, with signs they’d made.  They did that together a lot, now.  _Girls say yes to men who say no_ , they’d written.  And there had been a lot of people there, at least at first.  But then it had started to rain, and there had been cops trying to get people to move along, and a minor scuffle had broken out—Diana was too far back to see exactly what was going on—and then it had started to really rain, and between the rain and the fighting, people were starting to disperse pretty quickly.  People were pushing past, and before she knew what was happening she couldn’t see Starchild anymore. 

She wasn’t really worried about her, but she decided she should go.  There wasn’t any point in getting caught up in the chaos, or in getting drenched.  She lifted her sign over her head, hoping to get at least a little protection from the rain, and shoved her way through the crowd.  She wasn’t getting anywhere, even when she used her elbows.

“Hey, let her through, let her through,” she heard someone say.  She turned to look for the source of the voice.  A guy, smiling at her.  Significantly taller than her.  She liked guys who were significantly taller than her, and not just because it made a difference when trying to get through this kind of crowd.  She shoved past a few more people—they seemed to part more easily, now that this guy was next to her—and made her way to the corner, where it was less crazy, where she could at least stand under the overhang of a building for a minute or two.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling back at the guy; he was still there, hovering between talking to her and turning back to the protest.  “It’s hard to get out of these things.”

He nodded.  “The weather doesn’t help,” he said.  “Here, you want my sign too?  I don’t really care if it gets wet.  It’s not very artistic.”  He held the cardboard, already slightly damp, out to her.  _Stop the war, feed the poor_ , it said, in plain back letters.

She laughed.  “Mine’s not that artistic either,” she said, holding it out.  “But thanks.”

“No, yours is good,” he said.  There wasn’t anything suggestive about the way he said it.  Unusual.  Surprising.

“Are you going back?” she asked, nodding towards what was left of the protest.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, looking too.  Most of the people were streaming towards them by now, away from the scene.  “Or I don’t know.  Looks like it’s over.  I always seem to miss the real action.”  Said without bitterness, with something more like wistfulness.  He smiled at her again.

There was a coffeeshop halfway down the block.  “Do you want to get out of the rain?” she asked him.  “We could go in there.”  She wanted him to say yes.  Wanted him to keep smiling at her.

He did say yes.

They huddled into a booth, trying to shake off the rain, and traded names.  His was Fox Mulder.  They ordered coffees while they looked at the menu.  “Coffee’s my vice,” she told him.  “Well, one of several.”  She watched him to see how he’d take that.

“We’ve all got to have at least one, right?” he said.  A good answer.

“Where are you from?” she asked him.

“An island off Massachusetts,” he said.  “Martha’s Vineyard.  Do you know it?”

“I do,” Diana said.  “I’m from Boston, actually.” 

“Not so far apart, then,” he said.  “What brought you here?”

She had her story crafted by now—who she was, who she was going to be—with minor adjustments depending on the person.  He could get the straightforward version, she decided.  “Well, not to speak ill of Boston,” she said, “but there’s more action here.  I wanted to get away from the life I was living before and be somewhere I could actually make a difference.  I think that’s everyone’s job, nowadays.”  She took a sip of her coffee. 

He nodded.  “That’s a good way of thinking,” he said.  “You shouldn’t…I mean, I don’t think anyone can be justified in just thinking about themselves.  Especially not now.”

“Exactly,” she said.  “And I wanted to meet other people who thought that way.  It’s not like that at home, let me tell you.  Not in my family.”  She hadn’t been planning on saying that.  But there was something about him that made her want to tell him.

“Mine either,” he said.  “It’s all about making the most money, whatever you have to do to get there.  They’re not very happy with me, to put it mildly.”

“I know what you mean,” she said.  “My mother keeps telling me I’m vulgar.”

“Mine says I’m uncouth.”

“She doesn’t even think I should have a job.  I should be finding a nice man to take care of me.” 

“Now, I, on the other hand, should have a job.  And odd jobs don’t count.”  He smiled at her again; she smiled back, getting into the rhythm of their verbal game.

“I didn’t even bring pearls with me.  Or gloves.  The horror!”

“With me, it’s the haircut that’s the problem.”  His hair hung just past his shoulders.  Some guys looked silly that way, she thought.  He didn’t.

“I cooked with my roommates last night,” she said, although that wasn’t strictly true, since Starchild had said she was more of a hindrance than a help and put her on dishwashing duty.  “I wouldn’t want to tell my mother that.  I shouldn’t even be in the kitchen. That’s why we have the help, darling,” she added.  She could sound a lot like her mother if she wanted to, although she usually didn’t.  Then she wondered if she’d gone too far.  Most of the people she met were running from their families.  But she knew that it was different, when the family was like hers.

But he was going on, smoothly; she wondered if he’d fully taken in what she’d said.  “They keep saying I’m acting like a lowlife.  Like I don’t remember the sort of family I come from.”

She laughed; she couldn’t help it.  She wasn’t the only one, then.  “You too, huh?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, and he laughed too, openly, joyfully.  “Me too.”

They compared notes further over their sandwiches.  He offered to pay for hers; she said he didn’t have to.  But before they left she took a pen and carefully wrote her name and phone number on his sign, on a corner that hadn’t gotten wet.

 

“Hey,” Fox asked her one afternoon, “do you want to come to a party tomorrow night?”

“A party?” Diana asked.  She was lying, the sheet half over her, on his mattress.  He didn’t have a real bed, which was something she tried to tell herself was charmingly novel and secretly thought was irritating.  But she didn’t mind, not really, because of the way he looked at her when they were lying there, the way he said her name, the way he touched her slowly and attentively.  The way he actually paid attention to what it was doing for her.  He was different, that was what it was.  “What kind of party?”

“Some of my friends are having people over,” he said.  “These three guys I’m close with.  I’d…well, I thought it would be cool, if you could all meet each other.”  He held her gaze.  This meant something, he was telling her, if not in so many words, and she’d be lying if she pretended it didn’t send a flutter through her.

She’d also be lying if she pretended she wanted to spend an evening talking to three guys, when she could be spending it with just him.  But if he was going, she wanted to go too.  What she needed was a buffer.  “That sounds good,” she said, reaching out to touch him.  “What kind of guys are they?  Would any of them be good for Starchild?  My roommate,” she added.

He looked thoughtful.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “They’re all great guys, don’t get me wrong.  But they’re kind of freaks.”

“Starchild’s kind of a freak,” Diana said.  “Maybe I’ll bring her too.  Then we can all meet each other.”

“That would be good,” he said, and he kissed her long and slow.

Starchild wasn’t so sure about the whole endeavor.  “So you’ve never met these guys yourself?” she asked Diana as they set out the next evening.

“That’s what I said.”

“And you don’t know anything about them?”

“I know some things,” Diana said.  “There are three of them.  And they’re good friends of Fox’s.  And they’re kind of freaks, apparently.”

Starchild looked thoughtful.  “Freaks in what way?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re not very helpful, Dee,” Starchild told her.  “But freaks could be good, I guess.  I’ll keep an open mind.”

“That’s big of you,” Diana said.  Starchild just laughed at that, and they kept walking.

The apartment, when they reached it, was small, smoky, crowded, and messy.  A lot of objects were strewn around the living room, seemingly in no particular pattern.  Books.  Old newspapers and magazines.  Battered posters.  Loose rolls of film.  An old fish tank full of candy.  Diana looked around for Fox, but she didn’t see him; maybe he wasn’t here yet.  Deciding to sit down while she waited, she started to move some issues of _Newsweek_ off a chair.  “Hey,” said a voice behind her.  “Don’t do that.  You’ll mess the place up.”

She turned around to face the speaker, a blond guy with glasses.  “Excuse me?”

“Those are where they’re supposed to be,” he said.  “If you put them somewhere else we won’t be able to find them.”

“Well, where am I supposed to sit, then?” she asked. 

He shrugged.  “There’s space on the couch, I think,” he said.  “Anyway, I don’t even know you.”  She was about to respond to that when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, there you are,” said Fox.  He looked happy to see her, at least; he was smiling as he leaned in to kiss her.  “Sorry I missed you at first.  Let me introduce the two of you.  Diana, this is my friend Langly.  He lives here.  Langly, this is Diana.”  He didn’t put a name to what she was.  They hadn’t discussed it yet.  But his arm was around her waist, and she knew that tonight meant something new.

Langly regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and mild hostility.  “Hey,” he said.  “Good to meet you.  Don’t move that stuff off the chair.”

“I won’t,” she said.  “Good to meet you too.”

“I want you to meet the other guys too,” Mulder said.  “Langly, where are Byers and Frohike?”

“They’re around,” Langly said.  “Hey, Frohike!”  This last was addressed to a short guy who was passing by.  “Mulder wants you to meet this chick.”

“Okay,” the guy said.  “Hi there.”  The look he gave her was slightly lascivious.  Maybe more than slightly.  Fox noticed it too, she thought; he tightened his arm around her.

“Frohike, this is Diana,” he said.  “Diana, this is Frohike.  He also lives here.”

“Yes, I do,” said Frohike.  “And you’re very welcome.  Make yourself at home.”

“That’s nice of you,” she said.  “Langly was just telling me not to move stuff off the chairs.”

“Oh, yeah, well, you shouldn’t do that,” Frohike said.  “We’re keeping it there.  But otherwise, make yourself at home.  Have you guys had anything to drink yet?”

“In a minute,” Fox said quickly.  “I want Diana to meet Byers.  Where is he?”

“No idea,” said Frohike.  “He was around earlier.  Let’s go look for him.”

They set off through the apartment.  “Did your roommate come?” Fox asked her, as they pushed past a crowd of people who were earnestly discussing Bob Dylan.

“Yeah, she did,” Diana said, looking around.  “I don’t know where she went, though.”

“He’s probably in his room,” Frohike said, stopping at a closed door.  “Let’s look.”  He pushed the door open without preamble.

Starchild was lying back on the bed, her limbs entangled with those of a brown-haired guy in a suit.  “Yeah, I picked it myself,” she was saying, “because I’m a child of the stars.  Oh, hey, Dee!”  She sat up.  “This is Byers.”

“I figured,” Dee said. 

“This is my roommate, Dee,” Starchild told the guy.  “She came here to meet you and your friends.” 

“All right,” Byers said.  “Hi, Dee.  It’s nice to meet you.”  Neither of the two made any move to get off the bed or to disentangle themselves, and Diana knew a hint when she saw one.

“Hey,” she said to Fox, looping her fingers through his.  “Let’s get that drink.”

Starchild was disinclined to come home with Diana at the end of the night (when Diana tapped on the bedroom door again, cautiously, she appeared in a bathrobe that didn’t really fit her and wasn’t belted anyway and told Diana to go away).  It was fine, though.  Fox said he’d walk her home.  It was a cool night, and they held hands again as they walked.  “Did you have a good time?” he asked her. 

“I did,” she said.  “It was fun.  I think I ticked off Langly, though.”  She smiled, to show him she was teasing.  “By moving that stuff.”

“Ah, to hell with Langly,” he said, smiling back.

“I thought you wanted us all to be friends, though,” she said.  “It looks like Starchild did a better job of that than I did.”

He pulled her closer as they walked; his voice was low.  “I wouldn’t want you to be that kind of friends with them,” he said.  “Or with any other guy.”

“Yeah?” she asked him.  They were almost at her place now.  She slowed her steps, deliberately.

“Yeah,” he said.  “You know how I feel about you, don’t you, Diana?”

She turned to look at him.  “I wouldn’t mind you telling me.”

That seemed to make him nervous, but she waited; she didn’t want to play games, now.  “Well, you know why I wanted you all to meet tonight,” he said.  “Because you’re important to me.  You’re…you mean a lot to me, Diana.  You’re smart and you’re damn sexy and you’re not afraid to say what you think.  And I really like you.”  He paused, seemingly at loss for words.

She didn’t want him to have to struggle.  She stretched up and kissed him.  “I really like you too,” she said.  “And I don’t want there to be anyone else.  Either.”

“Good,” he said, and he kissed her back.  They walked again, the last few blocks to her place, and she asked him to come upstairs and stay.  He did.

 

In December, Judith moved out.  “By the way, the two of you really smoke too much,” she told Diana and Starchild upon her departure.

“Yeah, no shit,” Diana said, and Starchild laughed.

Diana had raised the topic of putting out an ad for another roommate, but Starchild told her not to bother.  “I’ve been talking to my friend Melissa,” she said.  “She’s at Barnard now, but she doesn’t want to go back next semester.  She said she’d be interested in the room.  If that’s good with you.” 

“Sure,” Diana said.  “Anyone’s better than Judith, anyway.”

“You got that right,” Starchild said.

She didn’t think that much about it, until one day she came home and saw the door to the middle bedroom open.  A girl was standing by the closet, stretching up to try to reach the shelf.  She turned around when Diana walked by.  “Hi!” she said.  “You must be Dee.  I’m Melissa.”

“Oh, hi,” Diana said.  “Yeah, that’s me.  Do you want help getting your stuff up there?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Melissa said.  She smiled at Diana.  “I just wanted to put this suitcase up.  And these hats.”  She stepped aside as Diana lifted the items onto the shelf.  “But I’m too short.”

“The shelves are really high here,” Diana said.  “It’s a building for giants, I guess.”

“You’re lucky you can reach,” Melissa said.  “Do you want to sit down?  I’m just unpacking.”  She gestured towards her as yet unmade bed.

“Sure,” Diana said.  She took a seat.

“Starchild’s told me about you,” Melissa continued.  “She says you’re really cool.”

“Yeah?  That’s flattering,” Diana said.  “She’s told me about you too.  You were going to Barnard?”

“Yeah,” Melissa said.  “But I’m just sick of it there.  I want to be out in the world, you know?  But my parents are freaking out.”  She shook her head.  “If we get any calls from an irate naval captain, I’d advise you to hang up right away.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Diana said.  “I think it’s always like that at first, though.  They might cool down after a while.”  Her own parents had stopped with their frosty letters.  They said they’d talk to her _when she came to her senses_.  Which she imagined would be never, in their conception of things. 

“I doubt it,” Melissa said cheerfully.  “But I don’t care.  I’m just so happy to be here!”  She flung herself back on the bed dramatically, flopping down next to Diana and grinning at her.  “No curfews.  No cleaning up after other people.  No keeping my mouth shut about the war.” 

“Yeah, we don’t do much of that here,” Diana said.  She couldn’t help grinning back; Melissa’s smile was infectious.  “I know how you feel.  It’s a real trip, being on your own for the first time.”

“Well, I’m not really on my own,” Melissa said.  “I have people, right?  Starchild…and I hope we can be friends too.  You and I.” 

“Yeah,” Diana said.  “Me too.”  It felt right to say it.

“That’s what I’m most excited about, I think,” Melissa said.  “Being with people who think the same way I do.  Not being in a place where everyone wants me to pretend.”  She smiled again.  Her face was open, and she made Diana want to be that open too.  Like it was that easy.  “What about you?” she asked.  “How long have you been here?”

“A year and a half, now,” Diana said. 

“Neat,” Melissa said.  “How does that feel?”

She took a moment to think about it.  “Sometimes I feel like it’s all still new,” Diana said.  “And sometimes…I feel like I’ve never been anywhere else.”

Melissa nodded soberly.  “I get that,” she said.  “Well, I hope I’ll feel like that too.  After a while.”  She got off the bed, after a moment, and went back to her unpacking.  “Should I keep this?” she asked.  She was holding up a dress, light blue with a pleated skirt.  “I thought I’d pack everything, you know.  Easier to just get it all out of the room in one go.  But I’ve always hated this dress.”

“Then don’t keep it,” Diana said.

Melissa was still studying it.  “My mom made it,” she explained.   “My sister has almost the same one.  Hers is green.  And I know she meant well, but…you know, we’re not kids anymore.  It’s always things like that.”  She looked at the dress for a moment more and then tossed it down abruptly.  “I’m getting rid of it.”

“You’re getting rid of what?”  Starchild had appeared in the doorway of the room. 

“This dress,” Melissa explained, nudging it with her foot.  “I hate it.”

Starchild picked it up and looked at it critically.  “It’s square as hell,” she said.  “But don’t get rid of it.  Maybe we could make something out of it.  If we cut off the sleeves and…”  She squinted, her head tilted to the side.  “Yeah, I’m seeing it,” she said.  “Don’t get rid of it.  We’ll mess with it tonight.”  Satisfied, she put the dress down again and hugged Melissa.  “I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” Melissa said, hugging her back.  “I think I’m going to love it.  Dee and I have just been talking.”

“Groovy,” Starchild said.  “Well, let’s have dinner.  And then I’ll make brownies and we can have those and work on the dress.”

“You can sew stoned?” Dee asked.

“I can sew better stoned,” Starchild said.

They sat around the living room that night, nibbling on Starchild’s brownies while she took apart Melissa’s dress and reinvented it as a sort of tunic.  Melissa curled up in the corner of the couch, talking about her family and the way she felt she didn’t fit, not anymore.  Diana stretched out, her legs extended across the floor, her back against the couch, and sympathized; she told Melissa about her own family, the story she gave to only a few.  Starchild frowned, ripped the belt off the dress, and said that families were a hell of a trip, whichever way you looked at it.

“I mean, they’re these people,” she said.  “Who you just happen to have in your life.  You don’t even get to pick them!”  She fell into a reverie, then, and Diana nudged her with her foot to wake her up.  “And then they’re always around,” she continued.  “They get handed to you.  On the very first day.  When you can’t even talk yet, so you can’t even say anything about it.  And then you just have to have them around forever!”  She shook her head.  “That’s why I don’t think we should add any more of that to our lives,” she said.  “Relationships like that, I mean.  Where you have to have people around forever and you don’t get to choose.”

“Is that why you broke up with Byers?” Diana asked.

“Yes!” Starchild said, pointing at Diana with her sewing needle; she dodged to avoid getting poked in the face.  “He does not understand any of this.  He thinks that just because I slept with him a bunch of times, I should only sleep with him.  Forever and ever.  Why would you want to do that to yourself?”  She shook her head again and went back to the dress.

“Do you know about this?” Diana asked Melissa.  “The Byers thing?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about it,” Melissa said, grinning.  “I haven’t met him, though.  How about you, Dee?  Are you with anyone?”

“Yeah,” Diana said.  “His name’s Fox.”  But she didn’t say anything more.  It didn’t seem right, for this place and time.  “You said you have a sister?” she asked instead.  “That must be nice.”

“It is,” Melissa said.  “We’re really different, most of the time.  But I do love her.”  She talked on, her voice slow and dreamy as it came into Diana’s ears, until Starchild held up the dress and pronounced it done.

Melissa tried it on, turning around for their inspection.  “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.  Her face was flushed—it was always warm in the apartment—and her hair was loose, and she smiled as she spun, around and around.

 

It was Starchild’s idea to have people over.  “We could invite the guys,” she said—she was back together with Byers, allegedly having explained her free love views to him.  “Fox, if you want, Dee.”  And Diana said sure, and Melissa liked the idea too, and they added more friends to their list.  And now they were ready, waiting for people to show up.  Starchild had made most of the food, but Melissa had helped.  Diana had cleaned up the living room. 

Byers, Langly, and Frohike showed up first, and within minutes Starchild and Byers had disappeared.  “Great,” Diana said to Melissa, next to her on the couch.  “She’ll be dead to us for the rest of the evening.”  Melissa laughed, throwing her head back, and they went on talking with the guys.  Fox showed up soon too, and Diana made room for him on the couch, on the other side of her, close.  She leaned against him as they talked.  She’d never had something this easy. 

And it was easy, the rest of the night, the apartment a haze of smoke, a buzz of talk and music.  Diana looked around at them all, as they argued and debated and declaimed.  Starchild and Byers, who’d eventually emerged again, sitting together on the floor, arms entwined.  Langly and Frohike, eating chips and arguing about the best tactics for demonstrations.  Melissa smiling, her face in the light.  Fox warm next to her, light in his eyes and animation in his voice.  They were all there, then.


End file.
